Outline Chapter 2 (cont) OS Design OS structure System programs - users interact using programs Installation, customization etc. booting Systems program OS Design OS structure Simple Layered Microkernel Virtual machines

System Programs Provide a convenient environment for program development and execution. Some of them are simply user interfaces to system calls; others are considerably more complex File management - Create, delete, copy, edit, rename, print, dump, list, and generally manipulate files and directories Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers, debuggers and interpreters sometimes provided Program loading and execution- Absolute loaders, relocatable loaders, linkage editors, and overlay-loaders, debugging systems for higher-level and machine language Communications - chat, web browsing, email, remote login, file transfers Status information - system info such as date, time, amount of available memory, disk space, number of users

Operating System Generation Operating systems are designed to run on any of a class of machines; the system must be configured for each specific computer site SYSGEN program obtains information concerning the specific configuration of the hardware system Booting – starting a computer by loading the kernel Bootstrap program – code stored in ROM that is able to locate the kernel, load it into memory, and start its execution

System Boot Operating system must be made available to hardware so hardware can start it Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, locates the kernel, loads it into memory, and starts it Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed location loads bootstrap loader When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed memory location Firmware used to hold initial boot code

Operating System Design and Implementation Design and Implementation of OS affected by choice of hardware, type of system User goals and System goals User goals – operating system should be convenient to use, easy to learn, reliable, safe, and fast System goals – operating system should be easy to design, implement, and maintain (portable?), as well as flexible, reliable, error-free, and efficient Important principle to separate Policy: What will be done? Mechanism: How to do it? The separation of policy from mechanism is a very important principle, it allows maximum flexibility if policy decisions are to be changed later

OS Structure Simple Layered Microkernel Modular

Simple Structure MS-DOS – written to provide the most functionality in the least space Not divided into modules Although MS-DOS has some structure, its interfaces and levels of functionality are not well separated

Layered Approach The operating system is divided into a number of layers (levels), each built on top of lower layers. The bottom layer (layer 0), is the hardware; the highest (layer N) is the user interface. With modularity, layers are selected such that each uses functions (operations) and services of only lower-level layers UNIX – the OS consists of two separable parts Systems programs The kernel Consists of everything below the system-call interface and above the physical hardware Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory management, and other operating-system functions; a large number of functions for one level

UNIX System Structure

Microkernel System Structure Moves as much from the kernel into “user” space Communication takes place between user modules using message passing Benefits: Easier to extend a microkernel Easier to port the operating system to new architectures More reliable (less code is running in kernel mode) More secure Detriments: Performance overhead of user space to kernel space communication

Mac OS X Structure

Modules Most modern operating systems implement kernel modules Uses object-oriented approach Each core component is separate Each talks to the others over known interfaces Each is loadable as needed within the kernel Overall, similar to layers but with more flexible

Virtual Machines A virtual machine takes the layered approach to its logical conclusion. It treats hardware and the operating system kernel as though they were all hardware A virtual machine provides an interface identical to the underlying bare hardware The operating system creates the illusion of multiple processes, each executing on its own processor with its own (virtual) memory

Virtual Machines (Cont.) (a) Nonvirtual machine (b) virtual machine Non-virtual Machine Virtual Machine

Virtual machines for data centers The virtual-machine concept provides complete protection of system resources since each virtual machine is isolated from all other virtual machines. This isolation, however, permits no direct sharing of resources. A virtual-machine system is a perfect vehicle for operating-systems research and development. System development is done on the virtual machine, instead of on a physical machine and so does not disrupt normal system operation. The virtual machine concept is difficult to implement due to the effort required to provide an exact duplicate to the underlying machine

VMware Architecture

The Java Virtual Machine